“Oh, I do, I truly do – if I should ever be fortunate enough to see one. As a child, before my hair turned from red to black, I often stayed up late, and hung out a window hoping for just one glimpse of a Slewworth. Everyone says they exist, but I tend to think ‘tis just the adults’ way of keeping us inside at night.”
“You truly think that?” Nerratel asked, as he again turned left at the corner.
“Well, you are brave enough to scour the land, even on the Carbollo side, so have you ever seen one?”
“Let me see. Have I ever seen a Slewworth? The kind with long, sharp eyeteeth, thick prickly hair, and webbed feet? I suppose you have doubts that the Slewworth can jump high in the air also?”
“How high? Those who claim such a thing, say it happens so quickly, they are more interested in running than in measuring.”
Nerratel chuckled, “I can see why.”
“You fail to answer the question. Have you ever seen one?”
“I confess I have not.”
“There, you see. ‘Tis just a child’s fable.”
“The king said they exist,” Nerratel mentioned, “and I have no reason to doubt him.”
“Perhaps it was a Slewworth the king saw when he went on the quest, but not on Extane. Which reminds me, are we still on Extane?”
Nerratel turned left at the corner. “I know not where we are.”
“Then we may well encounter monsters. I see. Very well, if you are not afraid, then neither am I.” Lasun did not slow down on purpose, but he was beginning to fall behind when he whispered, “Perhaps we should go back.”
Nerratel stopped long enough for his friend to catch up. “You need not whisper.”
“I whisper for fear Raxton and Effrin follow us.”
“I have heard no other footsteps. Have you?”
“No, but let us not lead them to the symbol. Let them find their own way.”
“I agree,” said Nerratel, “but suppose we turn back and do not find the symbol when we explore the castle passageway in the opposite direction? We would have to repeat our steps, which would be a waste of the time we do not have. We must find the bells before they do.”
“This – this series of passageways is a box, you know. The passageways become shorter and shorter, always turning left at each corner. “Tis a box inside a box.”
Nerratel nodded. “I am amazed that such a thing lies within the castle.” He started walking again, although not as quickly as before. “Then again, I have not truly considered what lies within the castle.”
“I have, but never have I imagined something as useless as this.”
“Useless, unless it takes us to the beginning of the quest.”
Lasun shrugged and continued to follow. Five more times, the passageway got shorter until, at last, they came to a door. To their delight, the symbol they had seen on the marble floor was boldly etched in gold on the face of the door.
“Finally!” Lasun muttered. Yet, a quick examination of the door caused him to fret. “The door has no hinges and no handle.”
“I see that as well.” Nerratel felt the wooden door in all the places a hinge and a handle most likely would be but found nothing. He put his shoulder to it and gave the door a robust shove, but still it did not open.
“We should go back,” Lasun muttered.
“I fear you have lost your courage already.”
“I fear you have lost your mind. Is it not obvious we have chosen the wrong way?”
Nerratel was not that easily put off. First he touched the symbol with his forefinger, and then covered it entirely with the palm of his hand. To his amazement, the door began to open.
CHAPTER 10
AFTER NERRATEL AND Lasun hurried through the throne room’s side door, Effrin chuckled. “’Tis a foot race after all.”
“This cannot be all there is. Look for more writings.” Raxton pointed, “You take that side, and I’ll take this.” For several minutes, the two of them meticulously searched the room, moving the benches and anything else that they were able to move, but alas, there were no more writings on the marble floor or anywhere else. With nothing left to do, they too left the throne room through the same side door.
Not knowing the difference, they saw nothing amiss when the long hallways lacked a door on the end opposite the stairs. However, there were three closed doors on each side. When Raxton pointed, Effrin opened the first door on one side while Raxton opened the one opposite on his side. Just as they had in the throne room, they meticulously searched for a riddle, a symbol or some hint as to where the quest was to begin. Both doors led to a bedchamber with nothing inside to indicate it was anything more than a place for someone to sleep.
The second set of doors offered the same. Each bedchamber was decorated differently although all were in pastel shades familiar in the land of Extane. Yet, inside the bedchamber on one side, Raxton discovered a small door. Unfortunately, it was locked. While Raxton looked for a symbol, Effrin searched for a key. He found nothing but empty drawers.
Together, they entered the next room. It appeared to be a child’s play room, overloaded with every toy imaginable. It also held a tall skinny mirror situated on a wall beside a wide mirror that was only a foot in height. Effrin looked at his reflection in one and then the other. The tall mirror enlarged his height and narrowed his width, while the other did the opposite. “I see no reasoning in these mirrors at all.”
Raxton had to hide his grin. “I find it fascinating.”
“You would.” With Raxton following, Effrin walked out of that room, and opened the door across the hall, only to discover an even stranger interior. It was a long and narrow room with drawings on one wall of men, each wearing the same crown that had been passed down to King Grafton. Even more confusing were the settings of the drawings. One king stood in front of a vast body of water that splashed against the rocks and appeared to have no land on the other side, something that was completely unknown to the people of Extane.
In another drawing, the king seemed to be enjoying the company of two very odd looking women. One had eyebrows that stretched all the way across her forehead. The other had the facial features of an adult, but the body of a child. Raxton shook his disbelieving head and moved on. He found the next drawing captivating as well. A man without a crown sat on the ground in front of the gazebo, but the artist neglected to draw his legs. When Raxton reached the end of that room and found no door, he urged Effrin to go back the way they came.
“We find no symbols, therefore we must go upstairs,” Effrin mumbled.
“I agree,” said Raxton.
It was on the second floor that they discovered the king’s bedchamber. Finding nothing remarkable in that room, they moved on. Three more bedchambers, a sitting room, a door to a balcony that overlooked the land and the gazebo, and a small broom closet. None of the rooms or the hallway offered any answers.
“We do not find Nerratel and Lasun either,” Raxton said.
Effrin stroked his short pointed beard, “Where do you suppose they have gone?”
“Is there not a third floor?”
“I have always supposed there is, but where are the stairs, and why hide them?”
Raxton answered, “So no one could accidentally go on the quest?”
“That sounds reasonable. Apparently, unless we find the stairs, neither can we.”
“Giving up so soon?” Raxton playfully slapped his friend on the back and then headed back down the hallway. “If I were king, and it was my responsibility to guard the way to the quest, where would I hide the door?”
“In my bedchamber so no one could sneak past me in the night?”
Raxton didn’t answer, and instead went back to the King’s bedchamber. He walked into the room, and then stood for a moment searching the last king’s wall hangings. For a moment, he realized he was in the room where the king was murdered, but there wasn’t time to contemplate the details, so he set his emotions aside. He calculated the size of the room, and then
stepped back into the hallway. In the next bedchamber, he again calculated the size and found it to be unnecessarily small.
Back in the king’s bedchamber, Raxton smiled and then nodded to Effrin. “The entrance is along this wall somewhere.”
First, the two of them moved all the furniture away, and then examined the wall from top to bottom hoping to find the symbol. At last, Effrin discovered something odd in the far upper corner. With his knife, he began to scratch away a layer of paint. The instant the entire symbol was uncovered, a door in the wall slid open.
Effrin instantly jumped back, and caught his breath. “Suppose it is a trap?”
“Why would you think that?”
“I sometimes dream of being trapped somewhere with no way out.”
“My little brother dreams of that too.”
Effrin sighed. “Then I am not as addlebrained as I thought.”
“Not quite.”
“Not quite,” he whispered. When Raxton looked to see what was beyond the doorway and then stepped inside, so did Effrin. “Where does the light come from?”
Raxton looked up at what appeared to be a ceiling painted the same dull white as the king’s bedchamber. “From the sky, I imagine.”
“At least it is not dark.”
“Tell me you are not afraid in the dark,” Raxton teased.
“Very well, I am not.”
Raxton soon discovered that the short hallway led to a staircase. “We found it!”
Their joy soon faded. The stairs were so narrow, Raxton and Effrin had to turn sideways to climb up. To be safe, Raxton went first, testing the strength of each of the steps before proceeding. After so many generations, he was amazed that they seemed just as sturdy as the day they were built. He feared as they got near the top, the staircase would become even smaller. As it was, he had to bend down to keep from hitting his head on the ceiling. Instead of becoming even more cramped, the walls became farther and farther apart and the ceiling became higher, which allowed him to hold his head up and walk up the last three steps with ease.
At the top was yet another door, and when Raxton pulled down the latch and the door opened, he stepped through an archway into the most beautiful garden he had ever seen. Instead of pale shades of green, blue and gray, the leaves on the flowers were a vivacious green, the flowers a bright red, yellow, and orange, and of a variety he had never seen before. Raxton moved aside so Effrin could see.
The garden was shaped perfectly round with a path that led to a cleared space in the middle. Spellbound, Raxton and Effrin walked to the center and then slowly turned to better examine their surroundings. There was not just one, but several paths that met in the center, and at the other end of each path was an archway. In one of the archways was the door they had just come through.
Effrin looked up and discovered the roof over the garden was in the shape of a dome. “’Tis a gazebo,” he whispered,
“Yes, and the garden is the shape of a wheel with spokes, the same shape as one of the symbols.”
Neither of them noticed precisely when the door quietly closed, and when Effrin saw it no longer appeared in any of the archways, he began to panic. “Now we are truly trapped,” he moaned.
“You moan? I assure you, we are completely safe.”
“Assure me all you wish, but I say someone...or something plays tricks on us. Something is very wrong with the flowers. I know not where we are, but this is not Extane. Furthermore, I see no bells and no markings on the seven archways. How are we to choose which way to go?”
“Seven archways,” Raxton softly repeated. He slowly turned and tried to count them, but with the door gone, he could not be certain where his counting began and where it ended. “Perhaps there is one bell in each of the archways.” Raxton shrugged. He gave each of the arches another quick survey, and then made his choice. Just to be certain, when he approached the darkened archway, he first extended his hand and then put his arm through the opening. Assured there was nothing invisible blocking his way, he walked through. On the other side of the archway was a path that was also lined with colorful flowers. “Tis safe. Coming?” he asked.
“You’ll not be leaving me alone; of that I can assure you!”
Raxton started down the straight path and smiled when he glanced back and saw Effrin hurrying to catch up. He repeatedly glanced from side to side looking for a bell, and supposed the footprints in the dirt had been made by previous contestants. Instead of a forest or any hint of a landscape, he saw only undecorated walls and a wooden ceiling. Not long after they began, the flowers started to diminish in size, soon leaving just a dirt pathway, bare walls and the wooden ceiling.
Not once did he question where the mysterious bluish light came from nor did Raxton rush, certain there had to be a bell somewhere. With all the flowers gone, he could not even find a possible hiding place.
Without warning, the path split into four paths, each leading in four different directions. Raxton stopped.
Effrin slumped against a wall. “Did I not say it was trickery? Now what?”
“Now, we keep looking for a bell. Is that not why we came?”
“I am not at all certain why I came.”
“You came because you hoped for an adventure. I find this more than enthralling. How is it that all this is hidden inside the castle?”
Effrin abruptly stood back up. “It cannot be! Perhaps we are no longer inside the castle – not that I know where else we could be.” When Raxton chose to take the path on the far right, Effrin followed.
“The castle is attached to the mountain’s sheer rock cliffs. Perhaps we are inside the mountain.”
“Do you suppose the madness of all this is why the past kings claimed they could not remember?” Effrin asked. “I mean, who would believe it? If I said of a staircase that became too small and a mirror that made me look too large, they would laugh me into my old age.”
“And we have only just begun.” Raxton stopped and looked back when Effrin suddenly grabbed his arm. When he did, Effrin was staring at something in the ceiling.
“Is that not a bell?”
Raxton smiled. “It is.” He tried, but it was too high up for him to reach, so he wove his fingers together to make a stirrup. “Climb up?”
Effrin was smiling too when he put his hands on Raxton’s shoulders, his right foot in the stirrup, and waited while Raxton hoisted him up. He could just barely reach it, and to his dismay, it did not easily come loose.”
“Twist it.”
He did as Raxton suggested, and with only three turns, the stem of the blue crystal bell came free. Effrin took care not to break it as Raxton let him back down. “One found, only six more to go.”
“Providing they are all that easy to find. Somehow I think not.” Raxton continued on down the path, but before long, the path ended. To his dismay, it was another archway, and beyond it was the same round garden.
Effrin gawked. “We are back where we began. How can that be? The path did not turn, not even once.”
“Is it the same garden? How can you be sure? This one has...”
“No door in any of the archways,” Effrin pointed out. “We are trapped for certain now.”
“Wait,” said Raxton. “This gazebo is not the same.” He motioned for Effrin to stay in front of the archway they just came out of, while he walked to the center of the garden. Meticulously, he visually examined each archway. They all looked the same as before, but instead of seven, there were only six.
Fixated on his supposed demise, Effrin sighed. “We could be lost in here for days.” Just as he looked down, he spotted something glistening between two of the flowers near his feet. The second bell was upside down as if the stem had been planted in the ground. Just as carefully as he recovered the first bell, he twisted the second until it came free, and lifted it out of the dirt.
Raxton was thrilled. He walked to Effrin and took the first bell out of his hand.
“We should go back the way we came. Perhaps then we can f
ind the way out.”
“I agree. But first, we must mark the bells. If I am correct, I need to ring them in the order in which they are found.”
Effrin’s sack of provisions was getting heavy, so he set it down. “Mark them how?”
Raxton pulled a silk scarf out of his sack, and set his provisions down as well. “Mother hoped to keep my neck warm in case the quest led us into the high mountains.” He examined the rows of pastel silks, and then began to pull a pink strand free. He cut the length, and then tied part of the thread around the base of the bell handle knotting it several times so it would not come loose. Next, he tied another length around the second bell as well.
“But...”
“Wait and I shall show you.” He removed a pale thread, cut it and tied the length around the second bell just above the pink one.
“Oh, I see. The third bell will have three threads, the fourth, four, and...”
“Exactly.”
“Very clever. Now can we go back to the first garden and find the door that leads us out of here? I see no need to keep carrying this heavy load, since we have seen nothing to fear.”
“Yet,” Raxton reminded him, “we may never find this garden again.”
“True, but I could leave something so we will know we already found a bell here.”
“That’s right, we found the second bell in the garden shaped like a wheel. It must mean something, but what? The first bell was in the ceiling of one of the paths, which held no symbol at all.”
“Perhaps nothing means anything.” Effrin opened his sack and withdrew an ax. He set the ax in front of the archway, and then closed his sack. “I say when we go back we should mark that archway too.”
“Very well. If it will quiet your fears, we shall mark each one.” Raxton carefully wrapped the bells in the neck cloth and put them in the extra bag he brought just for that purpose. This time, Effrin led the way and Raxton followed.
They had only retraced their steps for a short distance when they discovered that the barren walled path split into three instead of four, and the three were lined with rocks and not flowers. Effrin stopped. “On which path did we come?”
The Kings of the Seven Bells Page 9